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Experimentation of a telemonitoring service for the elderly

The telecare experimentation started in Turin, Italy from November 2008 and employed the Telecom Italia platform MyDoctor@Home. This is an e-health service that enables the patient to measure at home his own physiological parameters with portable and Bluetooth medical devices and to transmit them in real time, through a mobile phone, to a platform accessed by the healthcare structure.

This service targets patients suffering from chronically diseases and allows a daily monitoring of their vital parameters, permitting a constant evaluation through a remote check and also a frequent interaction between patients and clinicians about their medical prescriptions (taking medicines and doing the daily checks).

The doctors are remotely and automatically warned if unusual states occur and can timely operate interacting with the patient itself.

Based on the findings presented in the paper “Telemedicine for the elderly: a feasibility study”, it appears that telecare, employed for elderly patients with several pathologies, can be an effective mean to improve the quality of assistance and the mood of the patients, easing the burden of the caregivers. The paper refers to a telemonitoring period of 854 days, during which 37 patients did more than 1100 checks with and without the presence of a doctor.

Analyzing the first results of the experimentation with the e-health service MyDoctor@Home, it has been demonstrated both the feasibility and the usability of telecare devices when applied to elderly with chronically diseases.